


The Seventh-Hour Division

by Tinker_Tailor_Reader_Writer



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Drama, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, References to Lovecraft, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:15:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25139074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tinker_Tailor_Reader_Writer/pseuds/Tinker_Tailor_Reader_Writer
Summary: "The universe, people, the planet; how wide and big. No matter where I go and what I do, it won't change a thing." As Gaia dies, the abyss reaches out… and the one-winged angels fall in. Were all their fates preordained?
Kudos: 2





	1. VII - The Next Job

**Author's Note:**

> The spiritual origins of this story go back eight years when I first put pen to paper for a project I called 'The Strife Trilogy'. My interest in that fizzled out as many other authors tackled what at the time was the endeavour to 'novelize' Final Fantasy VII. All these years later and the release of FFVII:Remake has rekindled that passion into a new project - not strictly a novelization but still a story reinvigorating my old ideas as well as bringing in all new ones, that is true to what I consider to be the essence of FFVII.  
> I have only two mission statements for this rebirth:  
> One is my desire to take a risk with a new style incorporating non-chronological narrative structure. So don't be worried by seeming gaps in chapter numbers, it's intentional, and I welcome your feedback on it.  
> The second is to avoid repeating scenes verbatim from any of the games, while still telling a complete stand alone story. I will use some key and inconsequential quotes from the sources, but will endeavour to avoid it as much as possible to give you, the reader, as fresh an experience as possible.  
> Along with this rebirth comes a new site (AO3) and a new title. Enjoy.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter VII – The Next Job

# The Seventh-Hour Division

> “The universe, people, the planet; how wide and big. No matter where I go and what I do, it won't change a thing.” As Gaia dies, the abyss reaches out… and one-winged angels are doomed to fall in. Were all their fates preordained?

##  Part 1: In The Middle, Treading Water

### Chapter VII – The Next Job

**M** ako fire burned the night sky above Midgar.

The verdant green energy swirled and danced with an ethereal beauty above the destruction wrought below. The fresh ruins of the Shinra Electric Power Company reactor drew cries of terror from the milling mass of bodies moving mindlessly in panic through the streets of Midgar’s upper Sector One.

Cloud spared neither the people nor the damage a second thought, although his eyes unwillingly lingered on the artificial aurora. He was pushed and bumped but the contact barely registered and did nothing to move him. He regarded their naïve self-centrism with contempt; how long did they think they could ignore the slums below? How long did they think their decadence could last before the seething underbelly of the city turned to… someone like him?  
The entire upper city was a massive plate upon which the wealthy and powerful could live their whole lives without ever leaving. Supported by the huge pillar at its centre, and numerous smaller columns spreading further out, Midgar city formed a steel sky over those confined to the slums below. The train, which he was heading to now, was the singular artery that connected the two worlds. The eight towering reactors – seven now, thanks to his contribution – powered the city directly off the core of the planet.  
Cloud didn’t know if he believed his employers that this was killing the planet, or if he just didn’t care.

Growing aware of how exposed he had become in his introspection as the crowd around him dissipated, Cloud forced his feet to move with the stragglers. Rounding a corner required him to break his gaze from above and –

“Oof!”

“Oh!”

The sudden impact took his breath away. Cursing mentally for his lack of attention to danger, Cloud cast his eyes around for the car or bike or – girl – that had hit him. His assessment of the situation came to a confused halt at what lay before him, for it was indeed a girl, young woman, really, around his own age that he’d somehow collided with so forcefully.

“Sorry.” The girl’s voice snapped him back to the present and belatedly he crouched to offer her a hand, glad he had somehow stayed on his feet for his dignity’s sake.

The girl missed his awkward gesture and had instead rolled onto her knees to start gathering the flowers strewn around them, her face hidden behind her long russet hair. He noticed the wicker basket on her arm, a crushed flower still dangling precariously from it, and the faded pink dress she wore and thought her very out of place amongst the finery of the Plate.

“No harm done.” He bit out and began to pick up the flowers in his reach.

“You know, it was your fault too mister!” Her voice was sweet, but there was a definite attitude behind it as she turned to face him accusingly.

“Sure.” Maybe she wasn’t so out of place up here as he’d first thought. Green eyes, that must have been reflecting the light of the mako fires above, wouldn’t quite meet his.

“Oh.” She was looking at the flowers he still held outstretched in his hand. “Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it.”

“But it’s a lot more than nothing, mister.” She took them from his outstretched hand but didn’t put them back in her basket.

“If you say so.”

She giggled at him. _Giggled_. “Do you know what happened?”

He sighed. “…You should get away from here.”

She cocked her head at that, and completely ignored him. “Here, do you want one?” She was holding the flowers back out in front of him.

“Why?”

“I sell them, silly.” She was practically bouncing on the balls of her feet beside him.

“…Right.” He couldn’t believe he was having this conversation. “ _I_ should be going.” He started walking.

“Wait! Special price for you, mister.”

He stopped to face her again, raising an eyebrow. “How…” And she slipped a bright yellow flower into the straps of his pauldron! “…Much?”

“Free to a good home.” She winked. The street was all but empty around them now, but the sound of boots was rising.

“You should really go. Now.” She took the terse note in voice seriously it seemed, for at last she continued down the street with a wave, the smile never leaving her face.

Cloud massaged his temples for a second, trying ease his mind of that experience. Without looking back, he took the first turn he could and headed for the train station to the lower levels. Of course, that is where the Shinra troops must have been heading as well, for they had set up a checkpoint across the road in front of it.  
He had no time to make it through them to the train before it left, any urgency would surely tip them off. He couldn’t fight through them either, that would just cause Shinra to shut the train down and would get the Avalanche members busted – and with them, his paycheck.  
He needed a new plan. The train tracks were swallowed by the steel work of the Plate barely a metre after the station, the perimeter covered in razor wire. There was no way he could get close enough to board there without notice.

Back in the distance he saw the bridge spanning Sector 1 and Sector 2 at the Plate’s edge; the train tracks emerging from beneath it. _Maybe, if he timed this exactly right_ …  
Cloud shook his head. Of course he could do it, he was a SOLDIER after all. More Shinra troops had established a roadblock on the other side of it, but they wouldn’t be the problem. He walked casually towards the bridge.

He had made it barely two hundred metres when he heard the train’s horn announce its departure from the station. _Shit_. He still had twice that distance to cover. Giving up all pretence at nonchalance he sprinted for the overpass.  
He was a hundred metres away when the troops noticed him.

“Hey you! Stop!” Yelled the sergeant.

Cloud ignored him. Fifty metres. He could feel the rumbling of the train beneath him now. The locomotive burst into sight over the rail of the bridge an almost immediately dropped out of view as it began to wind its way down around one of the gargantuan pillars suspending the upper city, carriages in tow.

“Open fire!” The Shinra troops had finally realized he was not stopping. He’d expected more of his former comrades. It was too little too late.

Cloud hurled himself over the edge of the bridge.  
He experienced a long moment of weightlessness and wondered, not for the first time, how it would feel to just float away like his name sake, lost among the shadows in the night. His eyes drifted closed.

Mako fire burned behind his eyelids, swirling like a thick pearlescent liquid.

Pain split through his skull.

He landed: the Planet swallowed him up, and spat him into space.

He opened his eyes.

Cloud was hanging onto the roof-edge of one of the train carriages. He was reminded, for a bizarre instant, of his collision with the flower peddler. The drop must have been larger than he thought to hurt his head like that. At least there was no way the Shinra troops would believe he had survived it. He - and Avalanche - were home clear.

He was only one carriage down from the rendezvous point with the team members. A smirk came unbidden to his face as he climbed to his feet, all strange thoughts from the fall put firmly out of mind. Cloud could just make out the distinctive yelling and banging of the big man with the gun on his arm. What was his name again? No matter. Cloud jumped across to the first freight car, looking forward to their reaction to his entrance.

He was going to enjoy this.

* * *

Seventh Heaven was a quaint bar, that looked like it would have been more at home back in Nibelheim.

Barret Wallace was not a quaint man.

He was a giant of bulging muscle that towered over Cloud in everything but spirit. Thick every where that Cloud was thin and lithe, with a large metal socket grafted to his wrist where his left hand should have been. The bare steel, where a gun had been fitted hours earlier, glinted brightly in tandem with the gaudy chain necklaces he wore in stark contrast to his dark skin. Dark sunglasses that Cloud had yet to see him remove were the finishing touch to his look, an appearance designed to scream ‘dangerous’ to anyone who looked, but only served to make Cloud more dismissive of him.  
_Real_ dangerous men didn’t need an advertisement.

They hadn’t got off to a good start last night. Barret was the leader of a wannabe insurrectionist group that had hired Cloud to help destroy a Mako reactor. They’d bought his services at the last minute, and while their intel on the facility had been good, their organization and tactics were amateurish – at best.

Cloud could not help but criticize every mistake and oversight the buffoon made, despite how furious it made him. He could tell that Barret knew he was right, which made the man’s profanity and bluster so amusing. When it wasn’t going to get the whole team killed, that is.

It was only a matter of time before it happened anyway, if they kept his crusade up. Cloud wasn’t sure why he cared.

He didn’t. Really.

That probably wasn’t the best time to sigh aloud, as a small bundle of bright, floral-print cotton and black hair threw itself at Barret. The bundle, identifiable now as a little girl, hid her face from Cloud against what passed for a shoulder for Barret.

“You gotta problem, Spiky?” The man was glaring at him. “Aw hell –I mean elf!– Don’t cry Marlene.” His voice impossibly softened at the tell-tale sniffles coming from the little girl in response to the mood in the air.

The precursor to full blown waterworks was obvious even to someone who’d spent as little time around kids as Cloud had. He looked skyward and, for what felt like the thousandth time that day, wondered how he got himself into these kinds of situations.

Still, he did the only reasonable thing to avoid this latest crisis and – ignoring Barret completely – offered Marlene the flower still hanging securely from his shoulder strap.

“Hey, can you look after this flower for me?” That successfully distracted her. “It’s pretty tough…” Which was the understatement of the year, after it had miraculously survived his acrobatics during the night as well as the Avalanche crew’s attempts to tease him for wearing it. “…But it needs a big girl to look after it. Can you be a big girl for us, uh, Marlene?”

Marlene nodded and grabbed the flower quickly, but gently, young eyes drinking it in with fascination.

“We, uh, better get some water then, and a glass to put that in, eh Marlene?” Barret said with a strange note in his voice.

Cloud met his eyes then and they shared a look which unmistakeably promised to never speak of this _ever_ again. Maybe there was some hope for the man after all.

Cloud followed them into the bar. As Cloud looked around, Barret and Marlene headed for the stairs at the back.

The nostalgia for Nibelheim was even stronger within. The reason why was apparent inside as well. An almost unbelievably curvy bartender was handing out a round of drinks in an outfit that would have scandalous in almost any other line of work. Here it would certainly guarantee her tips.  
It took him longer than it should have to place the name from his memory with the familiar face.

Tifa Lockhart.

 _How in Gaia’s name did she end up here?_ That wasn’t important right now. _She survived Nibelheim…_ Of course she did. He had kept their childhood promise in the end. He banished any more thoughts of the past.

“…Cloud? Oh my – Cloud, is that you?” Tifa had gotten awfully close, and her garnet eyes tore over him. “How have you – where have you – did you… hear?”

Her questions stumbled over each other faster than Cloud could comprehend. “Yeah.” He answered. That covered most bases, and sounded cool.

“Wait, you know each other?” One of the Avalanche members – thin with the moustache – exclaimed. “Aw-man!”

This succeeded in turning all interest to the surprise reunion taking place in the – Tifa’s – bar.

“You never had a chance anyway, Biggs.” The woman, Jessie, said suggestively. “So who’s Cloud to _you_ , Tifa?”

“Wait, you know Cloud?” Tifa seemed to be even more confused now.

“Hardly.” He responded. There were entirely too many questions being asked right now.

“He’s the extra help Barret hired for the–”

“Shut it Wedge!” A chorus of voices sounded at the fat one. Wedge coloured, and all three, now re-joined by Barret, cast their eyes furtively around at the other patrons. Cloud rolled his eyes. Amateurs.

“What’s going on Teef?” Barret asked.

Instead of answering, Tifa loudly exclaimed “Oh, look at the time! I should have closed by now!” There was a disgruntled clamour from the remaining patrons in the bar.

“What! But I’ve just started my drink!” The loudest objection died on the drunkards lips as Barret approached him menacingly.

“It’s on the house.” He growled.

“R-right.” There were no other protests as the customers left.

“Is the kitchen still open, though?” Wedge asked.

“Not now!” Barret yelled. “Meeting time.” He turned to Cloud with a raised hand “Avalanche only.”

“Fine by me” Cloud shrugged. “I’m out of here as soon as I’m paid, anyway.” Barret just grunted. He opened a hidden trapdoor and jumped down, the others filing after him.

“Cloud.” Tifa had placed her hand on his arm. “Please don’t go anywhere. Barret is just…”

“I know. Still waiting to get paid, remember?” He said with a smirk.

“Right.” Her answering smile was uncertain. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“Tifa!” Barret’s yell from the keg room was unmistakeable.

“Later.” Cloud answered her. Tifa’s smile turned apologetic and she followed the others.

The scene invoked an intense sense of déjà vu and for a moment his head throbbed. Still, it wasn’t all that surprising that she would join an outfit like Avalanche, after what happened at Nibelheim. Afterall, he’d left SOLDIER for the same reason, hadn’t he?

One thing was for sure, Cloud really wished he’d gotten that drink now.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the start... kind of.


	2. Chapter VIII

Placeholder. [TEST]


End file.
